Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 15 hours ago
The United States has gained sovereign rights over a million square kilometers of seafloor in areas located more than 200 nautical miles from its coasts, thanks to a government-led project to define the limits of the U.S. extended continental shelf (ECS) that culminated in December 2023.
Besides adding a million square kilometers of seafloor to the United States — an area roughly twice the size of California — the project led to discoveries of interesting undersea features, including a nearly 400-kilometer-long landslide in the Atlantic Ocean and a 1,400-meter-high methane plume off the California coast. This animation shows four interesting science discoveries from the 20-year project.
Read more about the work here:
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/us-defines-outer-limits-its-continental-shelf-making-discoveries-process
Animation by Lauren Lipuma at CIRES.
The United States has gained sovereign rights over a million square kilometers of seafloor in areas located more than 200 nautical miles from its coasts, thanks to a government-led project to define the limits of the U.S. extended continental shelf (ECS) that culminated in December 2023.
Besides adding a million square kilometers of seafloor to the United States — an area roughly twice the size of California — the project led to discoveries of interesting undersea features, including a nearly 400-kilometer-long landslide in the Atlantic Ocean and a 1,400-meter-high methane plume off the California coast. This animation shows four interesting science discoveries from the 20-year project.
Read more about the work here:
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/us-defines-outer-limits-its-continental-shelf-making-discoveries-process
Animation by Lauren Lipuma at CIRES.
